Currently, carbon-based materials, such as carbon nanotubes, diamond, graphite, and graphene, are being researched in various fields.
From among those materials, carbon nanotubes have been prominent since the 1990s. However, graphene having plate-like structures is being focused on lately. Graphene is a several nm thick thin-film in which carbon atoms are 2-dimensionally arranged and charges function as zero effective mass particles. Therefore, graphene has high electric conductivity, high thermal conductivity, and high elasticity.
Therefore, ever since graphene had been introduced, various research has been conducted into characteristics of graphene and the utilization of graphene in various fields. Due to high electric conductivity and high elasticity, graphene is suitable to be applied to transparent and flexible devices.